


Six Degrees of Separation

by jaciesaur



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: I forgot how to write happy fic, M/M, Misery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:01:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaciesaur/pseuds/jaciesaur
Summary: First, you think the worst is a broken heart, what's gonna kill you is the second part. The third, is when your world splits down the middle, and fourth, you're gonna think that you fixed yourself. Fifth, you see them out without you, and the sixth is when you admit you may have fucked up a little.





	

**Author's Note:**

> loosely inspired by "Six Degrees of Separation" by The Script.  
> I wrote this using a new writing program, so if the formatting is a little off, I'm sorry.  
> Enjoy.

Knuckles that had been tinted in places with motor oil knocked on the "mahogany" bar top, and an empty glass was pushed (with only some gentleness) away from the man who had knocked as he waited for the bartender to return with a fresh double whisky.

The knocker in question knew that this bar was far too cheap to have ever invested in a mahogany bar top. It was likely some cheap wood with a piece of mahogany laminate glued over top of it. Made it feel fancy. Special. Better than it was.

"Lookin' pretty rough, bud." The bartender offered as he slid the third whisky, no ice, across the bar to him.

"Feelin' pretty rough," He replied, and was not surprised at all to hear how tired he sounded. The edge of misery and distinct gravel of lack of use tainting each word that left his lips.

"You know, Sirius," The bartender started, "Y'come here a lot, so y'know I like havin' you around... but I'm gonna have t'cut y'off soon. Y'didn't drive that bike down here t'night, didj'y?"

"Nah. S'not runnin' so well these days." He held up his aforementioned oil-stained hands. "I should head home soon, anyway."

The bartender nodded, and moved to take care of his other clientele.

Sirius sat where he was at the cheap, scratched, water-ringed bar that once tried to look fancy, and he drank.

\------

"I got you this," Her voice was sweet and soft, and the throbbing in his head appreciated that. "I thought it might help." The redhead that had made her way into the little group in their last year of school sat on the edge of his couch and held a book in her hand.

 _'A Single Man'_ by some Christopher bloke.

"Lils-"

"Do yourself a favour, Sirius? Save your liver and stay in tonight. Read the book. For me."

With non-committal grunt, he took the book from her hand, tucked it against his stomach, and rolled so that his back was to her.

"You know we're about, if you need us. And I brought you some food for dinner. Just heat it in your microwave, okay?"

"...Thanks, Lils."

"Anytime, Sirius."

A soft kiss on his temple and then a gentle stroke of his hair, and she was getting up, headed out the door.

When the latch closed, he peered over the arm of the couch at the door, and then tossed the book on his coffee table.

Then he got up, and he poured himself a drink.

\------

He looked at the amber liquid in the glass with eyes that were red. From what was up to any number of things.

The drink itself.

Crying.

Exhaustion.

 

Amber.

The colour his eyes seemed to be when the sun hit them through the window. The colour that Sirius Black associated with warm summer light and his smile, with youth and unequivocal happiness.

His thumb stroked the glass idly, and he bit the inside of his cheek for a moment, an idle habit he'd had since before he could remember. He wasn't even so much aware of the action at all, but he could taste the blood, sometimes, when he'd worried his cheek with his teeth until the skin was broken.

 

His last drink for the night, was what the bartender had said. He wasn't going to complain, because he'd been here for an hour, and he was on his third double whisky.

He lifted the glass from the coaster ( _god, the damn bar top is already ruined, why bother with coasters at this point?_ ) and sipped at the liquid within the tumbler.

In the movies, the whisky is _always_ strong. It _always_ burns on the way down. And technically, that's not wrong. The first sip of the day _is_ always strong, overpowering the rest of the taste. But by the third sip, there's a sweetness to it. It tastes how it smells, almost like caramel. And the _burning_ stops, but it **warms** you.

He set the glass back onto the coaster, and lost himself in another memory as he stared into the alcohol that reminded him so much of what wasn't there anymore.

 

\------

"Jesus, Pads, lift your feet, mate!" A whispering scold that held no sting as his best friend hefted him up the stairs to his third-floor flat.

"Ah- _m_." He slurred back.

"If you were liftin' your damn feet, I wouldn't be draggin' you." Came the flat reply. They'd reached the top of the stairs, finally, and now it was just a quick jaunt down the hall before James would use his copy of the key to open Sirius' apartment door. He hefted Sirius' shoulder, and majority of his friend's weight, over his own, and threw his arm a little tighter around the drunken man's waist before they toppled over. "C'mon mate, not far now-" the door on the left, apartment 303, cracked open, and a nosy old bird peered out the crack. "Nothin' t'see here, Missus Klein, be on your way, huh?"

"Prongs, tell'r-"

"Shut up before you make a scene," James sighed, but again, there was no sting to the words as he dragged Sirius past 303, and finally to apartment 306. He managed to keep them both upright as he rooted through his pocket and pulled out his keys. He sifted through them and grabbed the right key the way anyone who has used the same key chain for years knows which key is which with little to no issue does, and slid the key into the lock.

"Knob sticks-"

"I know, mate."

He wiggled the key so that it slid home, and then pushed on the bottom corner of the door with his toe to get it at just the right angle, and then turned the key, unlocking it and turning it in one fluid movement. The door moved inward with the pressure he'd applied on the corner, and he shifted Sirius' weight once more before heading into the dark apartment. When they'd passed the threshold, he kicked the door closed gently, and locked it again. "Bed or couch?"

"...Couch."

They were headed there before Sirius had even replied, James knowing what the answer would be before the question had left his lips. He let Sirius slide down onto the couch in an almost boneless way. He left him there for a moment to head to the kitchen-part of the little apartment, separated from the living room by a wall that ran only half the length of the room, and flick on the light. "I'm gonna get you some water."

"Nn."

"Mm." He grabbed a glass and turned on the faucet to cold, filling the glass before turning the faucet back off and moving to sit down next to Sirius on the couch, handing the man the glass. "Drink."

"Nn."

"Mm."

Sirius sighed and grabbed the glass, drinking half of it in one go before letting it rest on his lap, both hands holding onto the cool glass. His eyes were closed, but he wasn't sleeping.  
James knew better than that.

 

They sat quietly for a bit before Sirius finally piped up.

"S'too quiet here. All the damn time. He wasn't even that _loud_ , y'know? Just read and shuffled around in his slippers, but, christ. It's too quiet now." There was a note in his tone that betrayed the misery that had settled into Sirius' chest, filling any and all empty space between the organs with something that threatened to keep growing until that was all there was left of him. "And he'd talk to himself. Mumble about his book or hum a song or something."

James looked over to see his best friend's lower lip tremble. He moved to put an arm around Sirius' shoulders, and the other man leaned in against, burying his face into James' shirt. "Sirius-"

 _"I can't sleep,_ James. I just... the bed's too empty and I got so used to hearing him _breathe_ , and it's too **fucking quiet."**

He did not need to see Sirius' face to know the man was crying. He could feel the shaking of his best friend's shoulders as he exhaled jerkily. He could hear the tears in his voice.

 

"Why'd he **leave**?" The words broke James' heart.

He didn't have an answer for them.

\------

With a smooth movement, Sirius lifted the glass, tipped it to his lips, and drained it. He set the empty glass on the coaster, and he pushed it away from him. His hand reached into his wallet and he pulled out thirty dollars, leaving them on the bar.

He twisted his body off of the stool and stood, wandering out into the evening. His apartment was two blocks to the east. They'd come here all the time. It was convenient, and the food wasn't awful so it was handy for those nights when they'd both come home late and neither had the energy to cook. His feet started moving toward home without him telling them, and his fingers moved to pinch the bridge of his nose as he strode through the evening air. From the corner of his eye, he spotted himself in the window of the mom-n-pop grocery where he'd often go for snacks. He'd grown scruffy in the months that he'd been living alone. His hair was getting long, and he hadn't shaved in weeks. He grimaced at the reflection, and kept moving.

It had been a bad day. He'd been on his way to work when he _saw_ him. Walking down the street, hands in his pockets, and he'd gotten lost in the mill of people before Sirius was able to catch up. They weren't all bad days. There were some days he woke up and cooked himself breakfast and headed to the garage to work. Days when he even found himself joking around a little with the other guys in the shop. Days where he reached out and got together with James and Lily and caught up. Sometimes those days ended with him on the couch, a bottle of whisky on the coffee table and the TV on keeping him company until he drank, and/or cried, himself to sleep. Sometimes those days were ended with him tucking himself into bed and falling asleep without a whole lot of trouble.

The days that weren't good were bad. There was still no in between. He wondered if there ever would be.  
Bad days, like today, ended with him drunk. There was no other ending to bad days, though depending on how bad the day was, sometimes the 'drunk' stage came around noon, and sometimes he managed to make it through a sullen day at the shop. 

The head-doctor that Lily and James had basically twisted his arm into going to told him this was normal. Everyone in his situation did it. It was how he was moving on, moving forward. It was just a series of stages that had no time limits, and he had to work his way through them.

 

 _"So in what stage do people stop telling me it wasn't my fault?"_ He'd asked once. _"I fucked up and he left."  
_ The answer to that hadn't been one Sirius wanted to hear, and it didn't matter. He knew where the blame lay.

 

He was home before he realized it, standing in front of his apartment door with his key in his hand. Not going in.  
_It's still so quiet in there._

He forced himself to put the key into the lock, wiggle, and press on the corner with his toe to let himself in. He let himself in, and it was the same apartment it had been since Remus had left. Cold. Quiet. Dark. The dishes in the sink were his own. No evidence of a second sign of life. He muttered a quiet curse under his breath, and head in. He kicked the door shut behind him just enough that it would latch quietly. He dropped his keys on the same spot on the counter he always did, and turned on the hallway light.

_"So what do I do when I see him? Because I do. I see him all the time. He'll be walking down the street or in the corner of my eye when I'm on the bus. He'll be sitting in our booth when I get to the bar. Sometimes he's on the couch reading a book, and then I blink and he's gone."_

He looked around the cold apartment and opened the fridge, pulling out a beer before heading to the couch and plopping down where he always sat, turning the living room light on as he went.

  _"I can only tell you that it's wishful thinking, Sirius. That you're wanting to see him because he's gone, and so your mind sees him in familiar places."_

He twisted the lid of his beer off and let the cap fall onto the coffee table with a tinny sound. The book Lily had given him was still on the corner, and he sighed, picking it up again. He was very close to finished it. When Lily had brought it, he had expected it to be some flowery garbage about Living Alone or some shit, some self-help garbage. He'd only picked it up one day a few months after she'd brought it because it was a good day and he didn't want to spend it drunk.

It had been **very** different from what he'd expected. Now that he'd read it, he almost felt bad. The book was about a man who had cycled into depression when his lover died, and the way he floated through life on autopilot. He almost felt bad, honestly, with how close to home it hit. He dropped the book back onto the coffee table and leaned back into the couch.

"I was supposed t'bring the fuckin' meat, Remus. I got home and you asked and I was so dog-fuckin' tired," He mumbled to the empty apartment. He closed his eyes and took a sip of his beer. "S'why you left. T'get the meat." He could still hear the gunshot. The sirens.  
He took another sip of beer.

 _"So when do you stop hearing the sirens when it's quiet? When do you stop replaying the image of being told the person you love is dead when you close your eyes?"_ He could still remember the frown on his head-doctor's lips as he tried to come up with an answer that Sirius could find tolerable.

 He finished his beer, stood up, and put the empty on the counter in the kitchen before turning off the kitchen and living room lights as he headed to bed, crawling in on the side that had always been _his_ side, and looking at the empty half of the bed next to him.

"Miss you, Moons."


End file.
